


all the smiles that are ever ever

by angelsaves



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Podfic Welcome, ghost kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsaves/pseuds/angelsaves
Summary: There's no such thing as ghosts. So what, exactly, is one doing floating above Shane's bed, demanding he play with her?





	all the smiles that are ever ever

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the ghost of you," by my chemical romance

There's no such thing as ghosts. That's one of the firmest tenets of Shane's belief system, such as it is. There's no such thing as ghosts.

...which makes it really, _really_ hard to explain why there's a little girl floating about six inches above his bed, the outlines of his posters visible through her translucent features.

"Augh," Shane says, rubbing his eyes with his fists. He fumbles for his glasses, shoves them onto his face, and opens his eyes again. She's still there.

"Good morning!" the girl chirps, even though the light coming through the window is pale and gray.

"Uh," Shane says. "Good... morning?"

"I didn't want to wake you up," she goes on. "My daddy says that's rude, so I just waited."

"You didn't want to be rude, so you watched me sleep instead?"

"Yes!"

Shane blinks. "Okay."

"Will you play with me?" the girl asks, bouncing up and down a little in the air.

"Sure, why not? I've already lost control of my life," Shane says, getting out of bed. "How about you go into the living room, and I'll find some cards?" He gestures vaguely towards the bedroom door.

"Okay!" She floats right through it. Shane stands there for a minute, raking his hands through his hair, wheels turning in his head. He realizes then that if he doesn't get Ryan over here before this -- girl -- disappears, Ryan might actually murder him when he finds out.

He grabs his phone and texts him: _get your ass over here Boogara_

_The duck it's 5 am_

_I'll make it worth your while bring breakfast_

_You're an asshole_

Shane opts to ignore that truth bomb from the Bergmeister in favor of pocketing his phone and rummaging through his desk for the dusty pack of cards he knows is in there somewhere. He finds it and opens the door to the living room, saying "Boo!"

The little girl shrieks, the sound weirdly electronic -- he's not going to think about how much it sounds like the spirit box, he's _not_ \-- and jumps further into the air. "You _scared_ me," she says, hurt.

"I'm sorry," Shane says automatically, then, "But you're a ghost! shouldn't you, I don't know, be immune to scary things?" Shit, he admitted it out loud.

"I'm not scary!" Her chin wobbles.

"No, of course not," he soothes her, sitting down beside where she's floating just above the couch. "You're just... surprising! Hey, do you know how to play slapjack?"

"No." She studies the cards in his hand. "I never played cards at all. Daddy did, though. He said he liked to skim off the house, but not to tell the cops that."

"That... is very interesting," Shane says, filing that bit of information away. "Okay, well, let me explain..."

***

They're well into their second game when Ryan bangs on the door. "Open up, I have food!" he shouts.

"It's open!" Shane calls back.

"I keep telling you, one of these days, you're going to get murd-- _holy fucking shit._ "

Shane dives to catch the bag of takeout, because he smells bacon, and he has priorities. "Little pitchers," he says severely, once he's upright again.

"Shane, that's a _ghost_ ," Ryan says.

"You said naughty words," she informs him, shaking her finger like a miniature old-timey schoolteacher. "That's rude."

"Oh my god. I'm being scolded by a tiny ghost." He looks pale and sweaty.

"Sit down before you faint," Shane directs him.

"How are you so calm about this?!"

Shane shrugs. "I'm just a calm kind of guy," he says. "I'm a chill-ass wheatback penny, remember?"

"You're an --" Ryan catches himself, stealing a glance at the little girl, who is currently trying to cheat at slapjack. "You're a jerk."

"That too," Shane agrees. "Anyway, meet my new friend."

"Hi," Ryan says dutifully. "What's your name?"

Shane blinks, realizing he'd forgotten to ask. "Libby," says the ghost, holding her hand out to shake. "I know your names, though. You're Ryan, and that's Shane."

Ryan's eyes are enormous, whites showing all around the brown. "How did you know that?" he asks, voice trembling.

Libby rolls her eyes. "You told me," she says. "When you came to my house. Remember?"

Shane and Ryan exchange a look. "We've been to a lot of houses," Ryan hedges. "Which one was yours?"

"It was white, with green shutters on the windows," Libby says. "It used to be nice, but everybody went away, and then it was just me for so many years, and I was so lonely." Her face crumples.

"Hey, but now you have us," Ryan says in a rush. "We're fun! So you don't have to be lonely."

"Yeah!" Libby perks up. "Shane does a thing where he makes the cards flap," she says confidentially to Ryan, then looks him up and down and adds, "You're handsome."

"Thank you," Ryan says, looking perplexed. "You're pretty."

"Thanks!" She twirls in the air, making the skirt of her checkered dress float around her. "Will you play slapjack with us?"

"I'll make the cards flap," Shane says helpfully. It would be completely absurd to feel jealous of a six-year-old -- eighty-year-old? She looks 1940s-ish -- ghost, so that is clearly not what's happening.

"How can I turn that kind of offer down?" Ryan moves to sit on the floor, across the coffee table from Shane and Libby. "Flap those cards."

Obediently, Shane shuffles, trying to make it a little flashy -- for Libby's benefit, obviously, not Ryan's. Even if she is, admittedly, right about him being handsome. "Here we go," he says, dealing the cards into three piles.

"So, Libby," Ryan says. "What... um... what's it like being a ghost?"

"I dunno," she says, swinging her feet. "Lonely, mostly. Lots of people can't see me or hear me at all, even when I _scream!_ " She demonstrates this on the last word, piercingly loud to Shane's ears.

"Why do you think we can see you when other people can't?" Ryan asks.

"I dunno," she says again. "You're special, I guess. You should eat your food before it gets cold. That's what my mommy says."

"Good point," Shane says. "What'd you bring me, Ry?"

"Waffles and bacon," Ryan tells him, digging into the take-out bag.

"You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar." Shane picks the bacon up in his fingers and takes a bite. "Mmm, crunchy."

"Can I taste it?" Libby asks.

"Uh, I don't know," Shane says. "Can you? I mean, feel free to try."

"Thanks!" She floats up to where he's still holding the bacon, translucent mouth open, and sort of hovers around it for a moment.

"Did it work?" Ryan asks her.

She moves her mouth around thoughtfully. "Yes, a little," she says, after a bit. "It's ghosty-bacon. Like me!"

"Have some ghosty-waffle," Ryan offers, cutting her a bite.

Shane tastes his bacon. It's not quite as flavorful as the first bite, almost like some of the bacon-ness went out of it. Huh.

The three of them eat their breakfast, Ryan and Shane trading off giving bites to Libby, and it's nice. Shane only steals a couple of glances at Ryan's mouth, which he counts as a win. He's pretty sure Ryan doesn't notice, either: double win. Whatever this... thing is, where he keeps looking at Ryan and thinking about kissing him -- whatever it is, he's going to get over it any day now.

"So, Libby," Ryan says, wiping the last of the syrup from his lips, "what do you want to do now that you've found us?"

"Have fun," she says promptly.

"I think we can manage that," Shane says, then goes blank. "Uh. Ryan?"

"Thanks, Madej," Ryan says, side-eyeing him. "There's a children's museum not far from here, that could be fun?"

"Want to play with our machines with us, then go to a fun museum?" Shane suggests to Libby.

She looks suspicious. "What kind of machines?"

"The same ones we brought to your house," Ryan says. "A camera and an audio recorder."

"I didn't like the one that goes like this," Libby says, hissing in a credible impression of the spirit box.

"Ha!" Shane throws his hands in the air, vindicated. "Me neither."

Ryan huffs. "Okay, no spirit box."

"Good," Libby says, folding her little arms. "The others are all right, I guess."

"Cool!" Ryan says, beaming. Shane can't help but smile back as he digs out his spare equipment.

"Okay," he says, once it's all set up, "smile for the camera!"

Libby smiles, showing a missing front tooth, and holds it.

"Say something," Ryan directs.

"Something," Libby says, and giggles.

Shane plays it back. "Holy... shirtballs," he says, staring at the screen. There's nothing there.

"Turn up the volume," Ryan says.

He does, and if he strains his ears, he can just about hear the faint vowels _uh-ee_ , and then a rustling sound. That's it.

"Ha!" It's Ryan's turn to do victory arms. "Now you have to admit it! There have been ghosts all along, mother... trucker!"

"I will not admit that," Shane says firmly.

"Show me, I want to see me!" Libby peers at the camera, upside down. "Aw," she says, disappointed, when she can't see herself.

"Sorry," Ryan says. "I guess you don't show up on camera. Which means," he adds, turning to Shane, "that ghosts could be everywhere."

"This is so unscientific." Shane shakes his head. "Absence of evidence counts as proof now? I think not."

"I want to go to the museum," Libby announces.

"Yeah, let's go to the museum," Ryan says, shooting Shane a look.

"Sounds good," Shane says.

***

The museum is a hit. Libby tells them which exhibits to go to and which toys to play with for her, since it would be both difficult for her to move them and incredibly weird for other people to see. It's a lot of fun, Shane has to admit -- right up until a little boy demands, "How come you don't have any kids?" The look on his mom's face says she's wondering, too.

Ryan grabs Shane's hand. "We're thinking of adopting!" he blurts out.

The _fuck?_ Well, Shane's done improv; he knows what to do. "Yes," he agrees. "My sugarlump and I are hoping to adopt a little girl, and we wanted to get a feel for the... community."

Ryan looks up at him gratefully. "Yeah," he says to the little boy. "Do you like this museum?"

"Yeah," the kid says, picking his nose. "It's really cool. Girls are gross, though."

Libby sticks her tongue out and wiggles her fingers next to her ears. "Agree to disagree," Shane says.

"'kay. Bye," says the kid, and he scampers off.

"Nice work," Shane says, only half kidding, when he's out of earshot.

Ryan looks embarrassed. "It was the first thing I thought of!"

"You'd make good daddies," Libby offers, floating along between their eye levels.

"That would be pretty cool," Shane says, not thinking about Ryan's gorgeous arms holding a baby, or even how good he's been with Libby, at all.

"What do you want to do next, Libby?" Ryan asks her. "We've seen pretty much everything here."

She thinks about it. Finally, in a small voice, she says, "I want to see my family again."

"Okay," Shane says. "We can make that happen."

***

Back at his apartment, Shane distracts Libby by telling her the Hot Daga so far, while Ryan does research. It only takes a little bit of checking to figure out which of their recent haunted house visits was hers: the Carter House, where a Hollywood mobster's little daughter died in the 1947 polio epidemic. The rest of the family is apparently buried nearby. Shane gets all of this in a text he surreptitiously reads while Libby tells him what should happen next to the intrepid and beloved characters.

"Hey, Libby, I think we know where to find your family," Ryan says carefully, putting his phone away. "Do you still want to go?"

"Yes, please," Libby says.

"Okay, let's go."

The drive to the cemetery by the Carter House is pretty short. They spend it listening to one of Ryan's Spotify playlists, which Libby really enjoys, especially Janelle Monae, for some reason. When they pull up in front of the cemetery, she gets quiet. "They died too," she says.

"Yeah," Ryan says softly. "I'm sorry."

"And they're not ghosties? They went to the end?"

"Looks like," Shane says. The end -- that's fascinating, but he's not going to grill a little girl.

"I think I'm ready to go, then, too," Libby says.

"It was nice meeting you," Shane tells her. "It was only a day, but it was a good one."

"Thank you for being friendly," Libby says. Then it's suddenly really bright in the car, like a sunrise, and she's gone.

"Wow," Ryan says.

"Yeah," Shane says. They sit there for a few minutes, and then he pulls back onto the road.

"Do you mind --" Ryan says; at the same time, Shane asks, "Do you want to come back to my place?"

"Yeah." Ryan sounds relieved. "Thanks."

At least he won't have to be alone. Shane feels pathetically grateful.

***

They get back to Shane's place, again, and they're standing awkwardly by the door when Shane thinks, _Fuck it._ "I have to tell you something," he says.

"Yeah?" Ryan looks up at him, and Shane forgets everything even mildly eloquent he'd planned to say, and just leans down and kisses him.

Ryan gasps, "Fucking _finally_ ," and fists his hands in Shane's shirt, going up on his toes and pulling Shane down to meet him at the same time.

_Wait, what?_ Shane tears himself away from Ryan's wide, sweet mouth. "What do you mean, _finally?_ "

"You've been looking at me like you want to eat me with a spoon for weeks," Ryan says. "I've been waiting for you to nut up and kiss me already. I didn't think it would take literally _seeing a ghost_ to make you do it, but --"

"Fuck you," Shane says fondly, and kisses him again. Ryan shoves him backwards, biting at his lower lip, until Shane's legs hit the couch and he topples onto it. "Hey!"

"We're the same height lying down," Ryan points out, and proves it by slotting one of his thighs between Shane's and rubbing on him, an awesome wave of friction that pulls a groan out of both of them.

"You're a genius, Bergara." Shane grabs Ryan's ass in both hands, yanking him even closer. "A sexy genius."

"Yeah, you're not bad," Ryan says, gasping as he grinds hard against Shane. "I guess I have a thing for bulbous-headed --"

Shane cuts him off, leaning up this time to crush their mouths together, and Ryan stops trying to talk to suck on his tongue instead. It's -- God, it's everything he's been dreaming of, only better.

"Fuck," Ryan says. He pushes up over Shane. "I want to get our pants off."

"Yeah, totally," Shane says. At this point, he'd probably agree if Ryan said they had to put on their Puritan costumes, if it meant getting to come with him.

"You have to let go of my ass for that to happen," Ryan reminds him.

Shane squeezes it. "It's so nice, though."

"I bet you'd like it better naked."

"Good point." Shane lets go, and Ryan climbs off him and strips while Shane watches appreciatively. His muscles are really, really nice, especially in motion.

"Well?" Ryan stands there, naked, like a fucking piece of artwork, still holding his boxers in one hand. "Are you going to just lie there?"

"I might," Shane says, stretching languidly; then his desire to get laid outweighs his desire to annoy Ryan, and he takes off his clothes.

"Better," Ryan says, giving him a onceover that makes his toes tingle. "Now, are we staying here, or hitting the bedroom?"

"I could not care less if you paid me," Shane says, staring at Ryan's cut abs, his flushed-dark cock, his gorgeous thighs. "I just really want to touch your dick, like, really badly."

"Flattering," Ryan says with a wheezy laugh. "Fine. Lie down."

Shane does, and Ryan straddles him, lining their cocks up and wrapping them in his fist. Shane's a wet kind of guy, so Ryan doesn't bother spitting in his hand or anything, just slicks them both up with Shane's own precome, and oh, God --

"Kiss me," Shane demands, and Ryan does, deep and soulful and full of that obsessive focus he brings to everything he cares about, still jerking them off.

It's just about the hottest thing that's ever happened to Shane, almost too much to take. He lets out a noise that could potentially be described as a sob against Ryan's mouth, and comes, and comes, and comes.

"Jesus fuck, that's hot," Ryan says, rocking his hips and rubbing faster, and then he's coming too, pressing his forehead against Shane's and panting. He collapses on Shane and kisses his neck.

Shane strokes his hair. "That was awesome," he says.

"Yeah," Ryan says. "Not bad for a first try."

"First try, huh?"

"I mean, I assumed, _sugarlump_ ," Ryan says pointedly, and Shane laughs. "I don't think we're ready for kids, but I'd. I'd get a dog with you."

Shane thinks about it. "Yeah, I think we'd do a good job of that. Couldn't teach it slapjack, though."

"I think we'd live."

"Cool." He runs his fingers down Ryan's back. "We're disgusting."

"Do you mean physically, or, like, spiritually?" Ryan asks.

"Yes," Shane says.

"Fair." Ryan grins against his chest. "Want to get clean and then get dirty again?"

"Mmm." Shane nudges Ryan's jaw until he gets the hint and kisses him again. "I could go for that."

"I get first shower," Ryan says, leaping off him. Shane has to say, the view is spectacular. It could make a believer out of him.


End file.
